Return of the Ape Man

Bela Lugosi plays the scientist who, with assistant John Carradine, travels to Alaska (or, at least, somewhere north where it's freezing cold) in the hopes of finding a neanderthal man frozen in the ice upon which he wants to experiment with a serum to see if he can restore life to him.

What luck, he finds one (did you have any doubt?) but, upon reviving him decides that his brute brain must go or, at least, be altered with the partial brain of a civilized man. From there things go predictably haywire.

This 60 minute quickie has the usual silly script and cheap sets that you only come to expect from Monogram. Lugosi and Carradine go through their paces but neither actor seems particularly inspired (does anybody wonder why?). The film has the usual climax, with a beautiful young woman passed out in the ape man's arms as the police and her fiance chase after them.

Biggest mystery of the film for me was the third billing given to veteran character actor George Zucco as "the Ape Man," along with Frank Moran in the same part. For starters he's not an ape man, he's a caveman. Apparently, from what I read, Zucco briefly appears in the role but darned if I could spot him. It's more like Zucco is playing the invisible man in this film than anything else.

Lugosi had previously appeared in another Monogram "B" entitled The Ape Man. I assume that film did sufficiently well at the box office to inspire this title though it is in no way or form a sequel, aside from the screen presence of its top billed star.

Bela Lugosi and John Carradine, both men played Dracula at Universal Studios and both men said "Yes" when Monogram Studios came calling with offers of work. In VOODOO MAN John was Bela's half-wit servant (Long John called that "The worst film I ever made!" of course he said that before he did BILLY THE KID MEETS Dracula.) At least in this film they are fellow scientists.

Prof. Dexter (Bela) and Prof. Gilmore (John) have perfected a way to freeze human beings and then thaw them out unharmed. They have kept Willy The Weasel (Ernie Adams) a "notorious tramp" (as a newspaper article labels him) on ice for 4 months. When he wakes up he thinks he has just spent the night in their basement! Bela suggests they could revive a person who has been frozen longer and suggests they head up to the North Pole to find a specimen of prehistoric man. With hardly any hesitation Carradine agrees and off they go. (Just keep repeating "It's only a movie . . . only a movie . . .")

Do they find what they are looking for? Well this would be an even duller film if they did not! As Bela says "One chance in a million and we've won!" They waste no time in thawing the Neandertal Man (Frank Moran) out but he is far from happy at being awakened from his 50,000 year nap. Bela grabs a handy blowtorch and forces the man into an even handier cage (You see? Fire is his Master! He probably never understood it.")

Now just bringing a prehistoric man back to life would have any other scientist ringing up the Nobel Prize committee but NOT Bela! He wants to transplant half the brain of a modern man into the ape man's skull so the world can hear first hand what it was like to live back then. Carradine is reluctant to do this ("That would be murder.") but Bela retorts "Murder is an ugly word. As a scientist I don't recognise it." Of course while determining just whose brain should be hijacked the Ape Man escapes and brutally kills a policeman. There is a splendid shot of Bela walking down a city street wearing a tuxedo with a lit blowtorch in his hand! This movie just has to be taking place in a parallel universe! Anyway moral and righteous Carradine reads about the killing in the papers and decides to spill the well known beans to the cops. Bela persuades him to drop by the lab first. Can you guess why? Yes! He has found his brain donor!

This movie is fabulous because of the sheer eccentricity of its plot. Bela, who is not even a surgeon, successfully performs brain surgery without even bothering the shave the Neandertal's head; whats more the patient recovers from this complex surgery and it up and walking in just a few hours! Where did Dr. Lugosi study medicine? Also, why is the caveman not hurt by bullets? Was he petrified after having been frozen so long or is that just one really tough animal skin he is wearing? Watch closely for the scene where the ape man climbs through the window of Carradine's home. You will see this prehistoric man is wearing a pair of 20th century underwear!

Originally the Ape Man was to be played by 2 people. Former prizefighter Frank Moran, who appeared in many movies for Poverty Row studios and even a few for the majors, was to be the title character before the brain surgery and George Zucco was to be the post surgery ape man. A still does exist showing the ape man sitting on a table with Carradine and Lugosi on either side. The profile is definitely not Frank Moran! That nose and those eyes do remind me of George Zucco; but that is not him in the movie at any time. A story goes that he got so fed up during the makeup tests that he "got sick" before his scenes could be filmed and Frank Moran played the role all the way through. Maybe George was still mad at Monogram because of his role in VOODOO MAN.

Bela is great. John seems to be just walking through his role, something he seldom did not matter how bad the script was. Then again the script does not give him much to do. With lines like "I believe you're quite mad!" and "As a public minded citizen it's my duty to report how the poor man happened to have been killed." Maybe that is why Bela's character thinks his colleague could only donate half a brain!

Supporting cast includes Judith Gibson, who was sometimes billed as "Teala Loring" and Michael Ames are the young-couple-in-love. Mr. Ames would later change his name to "Tod Andrews" and would star in such things as FROM HELL IT CAME (1957). Watch closely for Horace Carpenter (Dr. Mierschultz from Dwain Esper's 1934 sleaze classic MANIAC) in a non speaking role as a security guard who is killed by the ape man.

They don't make movies like this anymore. You know what? I am kind of sorry they don't.

Standard low, low budget Monogram programmer stars the legends Bela Lugosi and John Carradine as a pair of scientists. Professor Dexter (Lugosi) is determined that they find a perfectly preserved prehistoric man so they can continue with their cold storage experiments. Naturally, they do find an ape man (prizefighter Frank Moran), who comes back to life and wreaks predictable havoc. Dexter thinks that the solution to controlling the ape man will be donating a portion of a rational mans' brain to the confused cave dude.

Although this is routine stuff, clocking in at barely over an hour, Bela and Carradine are once again great value. Carradine, who played his own fair share of mad scientists over the course of his career, here gets to play the moral centre / voice of reason - and also gets to play that oh so familiar composition "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. Bela, meanwhile, clearly has fun as the irrational, totally self serving cretin who doesn't care what he has to do to realize his ambitions. The supporting cast is sufficient: gorgeous Teala Loring as Carradines' niece, Michael Ames (a.k.a. Tod Andrews) as her fiancée, Mary Currier as Carradines' wife, Eddy Chandler as a police sergeant, and Ernie Adams as a hobo. George Zucco was originally cast as the title character, and had done the required hair and makeup tests, but fell ill, and had to leave the picture. As a result, he's barely in it, spending a few seconds on the slab until the ape man wakes up and is then played by Moran. Still, Zucco clearly had a good agent; his contract allowed him to get third billing no matter what.

Overall, this is a mildly enjoyable lark, with nothing special or memorable about it, but it's got a decent forward pace and enough chuckles to make it palatable. The director is Phil Rosen, an extremely prolific B filmmaker whose credits include some of the Charlie Chan features.

Five out of 10.

RETURN OF THE APE MAN was one of nine films Bela Lugosi appeared for the Poverty Row studio Monogram between 1941 and 1944. In this film, he plays mad scientist Professor Dexter who with the help of his colleague Professor John Gilmore (John Carradine) revives a prehistoric man (Frank Moran) from an ice block. Dexter schemes to kill a modern person to use part of his brain in the newly thawed brute. Thus, the savage ape man will not only become manageable, but he'll have the speech and intelligence to describe his prehistoric life. Why not a WHOLE brain? Because Dexter believes that if he removes all of his subject's old brain, the ape man won't have any knowledge of his former life.

This synopsis suggests the film's silliness. The plot is more coherent than in most of Lugosi's other Monogram films, but it still has its share of inexplicabilities and inconsistencies. Monogram's typically poor production values further enhance the film's cheesiness. The sets are sparse and threadbare. An Arctic sequence where the scientists find the ape man is especially phony looking; one expects the curtain to come down when it ends. The music, consisting of randomly selected stock scores, is dull and often inappropriate, such as a marching band tune during action sequences.

Still, one can derive legitimate pleasure from Bela Lugosi's performance. Ever the trouper, he acts as if he's in one of his Shakespeare productions in his native Hungary and the film is all the better because of it. Lugosi emotes his standard mad scientist part with passion and conviction. He delivers such lines as "Some people's brains would never be missed" in his sonorous Hungarian accented voice with an air of sinister elegance. Such a unique delivery elevates his dialogue from stale cliches to arcane parlance. Lugosi fans should savor RETURN OF THE APE MAN.

It's a letdown for John Carradine's fans, however. As Dexter's sane and ethical partner, he just goes through the motions. His performance is so listless that one perversely roots for Lugosi's far more vibrant character when the scientists argue.

Overall, RETURN OF THE APE MAN exemplifies the situation of an outstanding performer (in this case, Lugosi) rising above his unpromising material.

Professor Dexter and his assistant Professor Gilmore (Bela Lugosi and John Carradine) are busy experimenting on homeless winos, freezing them solid for months at a time in order to defrost them later.

Next, they're off to the arctic to find a frozen caveman. Once one is located and chipped out of the ice, they haul him back to their laboratory and bring the troglodyte back to life.

Naturally, Dexter and Gilmore plan to transplant a normal human brain into the caveman's noggin. A subject is found, drugged, frozen, and prepped for the implantation process.

What could possibly go wrong?

RETURN OF THE APE MAN is every bit as ridiculous as the original film, perhaps more so. Lugosi and Carradine are in rare form, as is George Zucco. Everyone takes turns devouring the scenery, making this a wonderment to behold!...